


in the bright lights (of these white nights)

by eachandeverydimension



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 22:26:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2042586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eachandeverydimension/pseuds/eachandeverydimension
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has changed so much. He doesn’t recognize himself anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the bright lights (of these white nights)

 For some people, there is an event that cleaves their lives cleanly in half, a Before and an After that is as different as night and day, or mint ice-cream and steak tartare. (Well, that wasn’t a very good metaphor, as metaphors go, but it made sense. Steak tartare is a main course, and mint ice-cream dessert. One comes after the other, and you do not, under any circumstances, consume the two together.)

Sometimes it feels like he has so very many of these Befores and Afters, that if you were to take all of them into account, they would chop his life into minuscule fractions, individual adventures experienced by people completely and utterly different. Because there are so many people, and events, and places that have left indelible marks on him. Sometimes he feels like no one can see who he originally was, under the overlapping inks that have covered every inch of his body and his soul. The way he moves and the way he looks and the way he thinks and the way he treats others, they are as changeable and mercurial as the weather or a radioactive molecule. He has no doubt that Rose would not recognize the floppy-haired, boyish man that he is now for the man she knew as the Doctor. Neither would Amy or Rory be able to pick the shave-headed form he took on not long ago out of a line-up.

 He has changed so much. He doesn’t recognize himself anymore.

The only thing that reassures him is how to TARDIS still does, the heat she emanates and the fond sounds she makes when he lays his palm on her console. Whenever he feels lost, when he looks in the mirror and cannot reconcile the person he sees in there and himself as one and the same, she is the only thing that takes the weight off his heart. If (when) the day comes when she does not, he does not know how he will cope. He will stroke the metal counters which are just that, metal, which does not hum in contentment at his touch. Then, he will truly be just a mad man with a box. A box which no longer recognizes him.

Other times, he thinks about his age. For all his years, he doesn’t feel like he is the one teaching anything to his companions. Rather, they are shining examples of what he could have been if he were a better person. If he were not afraid to love, not in the false way he does, in brief but bright as a star spurts, but a long sustained burning like that of the sun, unchanging and constant, indubitable.

If he were brave, not in the way he is arrogant because he knows something the Daleks do not, or because he has a trick up his sleeve, he would head into a situation without the assurance that he will live to see another day, and do it anyway even if he were scared.

Perhaps this is why he leaves them all, even if there are unforeseen circumstances that force their separation. Why he feels a tiniest bit of relief mixed in with a sea of regrets, because they were bright and hopeful and so beautiful, and they didn’t deserve to be outshone by an old, dying, sickening sun. He lets them got for their own good, and for his peace of mind.

Sometimes.

 Often.

He thinks about what it would be like to reverse their role. To be the one living a mundane life, then be whisked off to a whirlwind of color and sound and danger, before going back to normal existence. What would it be like, to be able to look back on the mad times fondly, to be the one leaving and not the one left behind. To not be the transient one, just a gas station on the road trip of life. It sounds very cruel, but he would like to leave someone behind. Just once, to see what it feels like. To see what it looks like from the other side of the mirror.

Maybe one day he’ll find someone who stays and lose this urge.


End file.
